88pc Syrian refugees want to return home

BEIRUT - Mireille Girard, representative for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Lebanon, said Sunday that 88 percent of the Syrian refugees in Lebanon want to return to their homeland.

However, they have fears and uncertainty about their legal status in their country, Girard said, according to report by the National News Agency.

"Syrian refugees in Lebanon are worried about whether they have to fight if they go back home or not, if they still own houses and if they have official documents," Girard said during a seminar held by Institute for Development, Research, Advocacy and Applied Care. Girard said that the UNHCR is trying to solve the issues with Syrian authorities. The UNHCR official added that Syrian refugees have faced tremendous psychological problems due to displacement and the difficulty in accessing health services. "The number of psychological counseling by Syrian refugees in Lebanon reached 4,300 monthly in 2018," she said.

Over one million Syrian refugees are registered with the UNHCR in Lebanon, while Lebanon's government estimated the actual number of Syrians in the country to be 1.5 million.

To facilitate the return of Syrian refugees to their homeland, Russia drafted a strategy for this purpose and presented it to the Lebanese authorities.